Friendswood superintendent: Islam presentation not meant for students

It’s Saturday, but Karolyn Gephart, Friendswood ISD’s public information officer, apparently was working. She e-mailed me a copy of Superintendent Trish Hanks’ letter to parents about the now-controversial presentation that students at Friendswood Junior High School received from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (earlier blog post).

Hanks said she signed off on the presentation for administrators and staff — not for students — but there apparently was a miscommunication between a deputy superintendent and the school’s principal. Hanks also revealed that the presentation was prompted by an incident involving a student that the American-Islamic council considered a hate crime.

Here’s the entire letter.

May 31, 2008

Dear Parents and Community Members:

In response to an incident that occurred between students at Friendswood Junior High School and the perception and fear that it caused to some involved, Robin Lowe, principal, was contacted by the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and told that they considered the incident a hate crime and had reported it to the FBI. Mrs. Lowe and Sherry Green, Deputy Superintendent, attended a meeting with representatives of CAIR. At the meeting, CAIR requested an opportunity to present factual and basic information about Muslims to students at Friendswood Junior High School since the school is predominantly Anglo Christian. Anticipating this request, I instructed Mrs. Green that the district would welcome the presentation to administrators and staff only, but not for a student presentation. This has been the way the District has handled other requests by groups interested in raising our awareness of the culture of our students who are minorities in Friendswood. After administrators have listened to others’ concerns, we discuss the issues we are having in FISD schools and the appropriate way to address them for our students. After the meeting, I was told that a presentation would be scheduled with the administrative team. It is obvious now, that a misunderstanding occurred between two very competent and dedicated administrators.

In the midst of activities during the final two weeks of school, Mrs. Lowe was contacted by CAIR and asked to schedule the presentation. Mrs. Lowe hastily scheduled the presentation and notified me and Mrs. Green the day before the presentation by email. Neither Mrs. Green nor I saw the email until the following day when the presentations were occurring or had occurred.

From what I have been told, the content of the presentation was informational. My concern for our community and for our students is not as much with the content of the presentation as explained to me, but with the fact that a group had an audience with our students without consent from parents or this administration. I consider parental trust critical to our success as a district. This trust was violated and I deeply regret that.

I am not surprised by the community’s reaction. Most of you receiving this letter have had years of experience with this district and know the kinds of activities your child has been exposed to in school. This was an isolated incident and a mistake. I am implementing corrective actions to ensure that a similar situation does not occur again.

Friendswood is a faith based community and founded on these principles. The school district has always and will continue to honor that heritage.

===”Friendswood is a faith based community and founded on these principles. The school district has always and will continue to honor that heritage.”===

With all due respect, it sounds like Ms. Hanks is saying that because Friendswood is “Christian Community”, founded by Quakers, FISD will continue to make sure that Christian viewpoints and morals are given a priority over the values and viewpoints of other religons.

This is a really sad situation. Reminds me of when I was attending FHS in the 1990s and my girlfriend and I were called into Pricipal Curtis Wilson’s office and were told that our “relationship” was “immoral” and it was “unacceptable” behavior for students at Friendswood High School. We were told that if we continued our relationship our parents would be notified.

We all should respect the policies of the FISD. Superintendent Trish Hanks’ letter to parents is fair and balanced. And parents do have the right to make the choice.

I from my personal experience as a host of “The Meditation Hour” radio show on KCHN AM 1050 every Sunday at 6:00 PM and as a guest speaker on “understanding Islam” presentations draw curious and uninformed crowds despite their reservation about Islam.

So long people are aware of what they would be presented with have no issues. It is understandable why handful of parents feel their rights have been violated.

People become reasonable when truth is bared to them. We live in this great society where we all have equal rights unlike rest of the world countries.

I would encourage everyone to Call and listen to the next Sunday two hour special radio show dedicated to this subject at 6.00 PM on KCHN AM 1050. The call in line # is 713.461.8313

I would personally invite the School officials to the studios.Let us together remove misunderstandings among us for a prosperous

Exactly!! I have sent a strong letter to the district regarding this exact comment. Allowing this dangerous organization into the school is unbelievable. I don’t care how fair and balanced everyone is trying to be – this is inexcusable and troubling.

The disturbing part is that representatives from a Terrorist Front group, CAIR, were allowed onto school grounds, let alone meet with children or administration.

CAIR was founded by Hamas members and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a Fact. CAIR is a group founded by men with blood on their hands, and school officials gave them a red carpet escort to American children.

What the administration did here was pathetic and very dangerous.

There are much better Muslim groups to meet with school officials and talk issues – but NEVER a PROVEN Terrorist Front group named “CAIR”. (http://www.anti-cair-net.org/)

Although the blame seemed to be shot at Mrs. Lowe, I believe the letter also said there was miscomunication here. If there was miscomunication here then the wrong was not just on the one recieving communication but also on the one pronouncing the communication. Both are in the wrong (accidently), but I am not so sure if everyone should be so worked up here. This seems like it was most likely a mistake that happened to effect the whole community with kids attending FJH. The truth is who doesn’t make mistakes. If we are a faith based community, why not forgive and forget. The few that initiated this wrong have heard enough and most likely will never, never do it again. We really don’t know who did what, but the message has been given by the parents stirring up the community. They, I believe have learned there lesson. The truth is it is time for the stirring to stop.

We don’t know who is the one who really was in the wrong when the incident has been told this way. We as Christians should learn to forgive. Paul said why not just say you have been cheated and accept wrong. Why go to court among unbeleiver can’t you judge this within the Church, don’t you know that one day you will judge the angels. Paul said this to Chistians who were taking other Christians to court. I believe it is for this situation as well. Why don’t we accept the wrong and bear the fruit of longsuffering. If you are a Chistian parent of a student from FJH please consider releasing your heart in forgivness and just dropping the situation. Learn to pray about the school system more. Start attending meeting and being a good influence so that this stuff doesn’t happen anymore.

Mrs. Lowe I apoligize on behalf of all my Christian brothers and sisters here in Friendswood.

Are you kidding me? Forgive and forget huh. Maybe thats exactly what muslim extremists are counting on. Forgiveness is paramount and I believe strongly in that, ive done my share of wrong. There is also a time to STAND UP for your faith! I would say this is most surely one of those times!

In the matter of fairness, lets go ahead and have a Christian speaker come to tell the greatest truth ever told, of the life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! Of how he atoned for our sins and how these kids can also share in His kingdom through faith in the risen Lord. How about that for fairness!

Will it happen, heck no. The ACLU and every left wing nut job will go insane if THAT happened. You know “separation of church and state” and all. You think there is press over this situation, just try telling the real truth of Jesus and see how crazy it gets.

Have you ever boiled a frog? You dont just chunk him in the boiling water, he will jump out. You start it off slow and build the heat gradually. These people arent stupid, if you want to indoctrinate kids in a public setting you start off slow, maybe with a “cultural presentation”.

This is not a simple misunderstanding, this was on PURPOSE and its WRONG.

The fact that the kids involved were punished should have been enough for the parents of this child. Theres an agenda here and by going to cair and calling this a hate crime the parents have drawn a line in the sand. Not uncommon for someone with their agenda. The school district cratered to agree to even let the cair organazation address the faculty much less the students. This is totally unacceptable. Im sorry the message has to be sent to someone so incompetant as to allow this to happen. I dont believe the excuse, cair should have been told to take a hike. I guess the next time our school district is in this situation we all know what the result will be. Now that this has happened dont you think these agenda driven parents and cair have the upper hand . We should have stood as a comunnity and and told the parents it was already dealt with and told cair to take a hike. Hate crime you must be kidding.I say fire the superintendent and the board if they knew of this. They knew what was going on dont be fooled.

if (Christian) children cannot pray in school due to “laws”… I cannot see how Moozlim propaganda can be allowed in our schools either. CAIR (aka Terror Supported Izlam) should be banned from all schools. Long live Michael Savage!!!

This entire thing doesn’t pass the smell test. Principals are generally overcautious about such things for no other reason that they wish to avoid this sort of dust-up.

With that in mind, I cannot fathom how this Lowe would have felt justified in dragging the student body into this without having (at least) an e-mail response in hand from Admin telling her the activity was approved.

Peter Principle seems to be at work here – this is clearly a principal who is more suited for the “assistant principal” role than the one she has. Reassign her.

THIS was not a mistake or accident. Karolyn Gephart is asserting that none of her staff, including the deputy superintendent, the school’s principal or any of the other staff was awake enough to see a great big RED FLAG and huge wrong doing. Not a single staff member raised a concern or recognized a problem? Come on, don’t insulte our intelligence. Did someone throw common sense out the window on that day? Swift and immediate action is needed. Who choose this kind of presentation and why would it be necessary for even the staff???? If anything they should have been given additional resources for how to approach the children regarding hate crimes and taught about cultural/religious tolerance. Not an indoctrination on Islam. How does feeding Islam to the staff fix the hate crime or stop future ones?

If this represents the leadership of this school, our kids are in a heap of trouble, and so is our Nation.

Some comments to address the lack of knowledge of bloggers from MANY different site:

*Other hate crimes directed at Jews and Blacks occured during the school year – this was an attempt to stop the bullying by educating students about other cultures. Muslim students were called terrorists, heritics, made fun of because of their holidays that they observed.

*The teachers were not present or told about the assembly.

*Students CAN say “God Bless You” in response to a sneeze WITHOUT reprucussions.

*Students say the Pledge of Allegance (One nation under God), Texas Pledge and have a moment of silence

*Students did multicultural units in homeroom

*Students heard multicultural information once a week on the announcements (ex. types of food from countries, traditional clothing)

*Lowe is a nice lady, now receiving viscious emails and phone calls threatening her and her family from “Christians”

to allege that CAIR is a terrorist organization is ridiculous. in this post 9/11 era, the government doesn’t even need to produce evidence to put someone in guantanamo bay or to close down an organization.

My question is doesnt this violate the sepreation of church and state? I know other programs (praying at the flag pole) have to be lead by a student. I think to pull a group of children out of class for a lesson on any sort of religion is wrong. You send your child to school for an education. You do the moral work at home, it is up to the parents what they want their children exposed to.

Please direct your comments and complaints to the US Government for it is they who gave CAIR the designation of unindicted co-conspiritors in a trail about funding of terrorist organizations (that would be Hamas – unless you dispute that terrorist designation too).

This is not something I made up out of bigotry.

Politicking aside – any entity that supports a domestic or foreign organization (such as Hamas) in a call to kill Americans – or America’s allies (in this case Isrealis – but it could just as easily be Saudis or Pakistanis) – should automatically be ostracized.

Having read the evidence and researched other sources regarding CAIR I remain completely comfortable in concluding that they are not a suitable entity to be given access to schools.

Are there any fact based counter arguments that disproves the US Government’s statements?

Islam is not just a religion nor is it a cult. It is a complete system.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic and military components.

The religious component is a beard for all the other components.

Islamization occurs when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their so-called ‘religious rights.’

When politically correct and culturally diverse societies agree to ‘the reasonable’ Muslim demands for their ‘religious rights,’ they also get the other components under the table. Here’s how it works (percentages source CIA: The World Fact Book (2007)).

As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a “peace-loving minority” and not as a threat to anyone.

In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:

United States — Muslim 1.0%

Australia — Muslim 1.5%

Canada — Muslim 1.9%

China — Muslim 1%-2%

Italy — Muslim 1.5%

Norway — Muslim 1.8%

At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:

Denmark — Muslim 2%

Germany — Muslim 3.7%

United Kingdom — Muslim 2.7%

Spain — Muslim 4%

Thailand — Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.

They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims.

They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply. ( United States ).

France — Muslim 8%

Philippines — Muslim 5%

Sweden — Muslim 5%

Switzerland — Muslim 4.3%

The Netherlands — Muslim 5.5%

Trinidad &Tobago — Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law.

The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world but to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions ( Paris — car-burnings).

Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats ( Amsterdam — Mohammed cartoons).

From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:

Albania — Muslim 70%

Malaysia — Muslim 60.4%

Qatar — Muslim 77.5%

Sudan — Muslim 70%

After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:

Bangladesh — Muslim 83%

Egypt — Muslim 90%

Gaza — Muslim 98.7%

Indonesi a — Muslim 86.1%

Iran — Muslim 98%

Iraq — Muslim 97%

Jordan — Muslim 92%

Morocco — Muslim 98.7%

Pakistan — Muslim 97%

Palestine — Muslim 99%

Syria — Muslim 90%

Tajikistan — Muslim 90%

Turkey — Muslim 99.8%

United Arab Emirates — Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ — the Islamic House of Peace — there’s supposed to be peace because everybody is Muslim:

Afghanistan — Muslim 100%

Saudi Arabia — Muslim 100%

Somalia — Muslim 100%

Yemen — Muslim 99.9%

Of course, that’s not the case. To satisfy their blood lust, Muslims then start killing each other for a variety of reasons.

‘Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel. — Leon Uris, ‘The Haj’

It is good to remember that in many, many countries, such as France , the Muslim populations are centered around ghettos based on their ethnicity.

Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. Therefore, they exercise more power than their national average would indicate.

People, I am fed up so I will NOT qualify this when I write that Muslims in the US are turning logic on its head.

A high school student reports a “hate crime” against Islam? Women –who have virtually no power in Arab countries — do a show-and-tell about Islam in this country respecting its real historical bases so we won’t have stereoptypes generated by false reporting.

And unlike these moral and intellectual cowards, I will also NOT put a towel or rag on my head to hide my identity: I am John A. Olson, Rio Grande City Texas, 956.607.9400, so if you want to send someone or show up to threaten, intimidate, or, yes, kill me, have at it.

Last week Lowe released a statement that indicated the presentation was the result of “a few incidents of racially insensitive graffiti in the restrooms and other areas, as well as comments being made to students that are highly inappropriate”.

a “mis-communication”. Just like Hillary’s dodging bullets in Somalia was a “mis-spoken” statement. IT WAS A LIE! Just like what this school is saying about the “mistake”. No mistake, they wanted the students to be indoctrinated like every single other public school caving in to high pressure tactics from radical groups like CAIR and the ACLU etc. Don’t think this mistake would have ever happened if it were a christian person wanting to “educate” the students about why christians are hated so much. No mistake would have ever happened in that case. ONLY the teachers would have heard their concerns.

I want to know what there is about Islam. Since 9/11, I’ve learned that Muhammad married Aisha when the child was six years old and comsummated the “marriage” when the child was nine years old. In a civilized world, pedophile Muhammad would have gone to prison for many years. Muslims try to get away with it by saying that it was the custom to “marry” and have sex with little girls at a very early age. It is still the “custom” in some of the backward Muslim countries.

I know that the unholy Qur’an calls Christians and Jews “pigs and apes.” I want to ask CAIR why the unholy Qur’an and they think I’m a “pig and/or an ape.” If Allah is actually God, why would God call be a pig? It doesn’t wash. That’s why I’m sure Allah is another name for Satan. That’s why I refer to Allah as Satan/Allah. It is Satan/Allah that calls me a “pig and/or an ape.”

The Qur’an is full of filth. If we followed the unholy Qur’an, we would break every one of The Ten Commandments of the God of Love, the God of the Christians and Jews. Our God doesn’t teach filth. Satan/Allah does!!!!!

Last week Lowe released a statement that indicated the presentation was the result of “a few incidents of racially insensitive graffiti in the restrooms and other areas, as well as comments being made to students that are highly inappropriate”.

hummm that’s interesting – CAIR said they wanted to do a presentation based on actual physical violence – they believed the boy had a medical report.

Shouldn’t those responsible get their stories straight?

Friendswood is a very small community, and people talk. Last year a few boys broke into the JHS & stole some things, it was within hours everyone knew who it was. Everyone knows everone’s business, yet no one knows anything about the alleged “hate-crime” that sparked the rush job on getting CAIR to the school. Even those in charge don’t have stories that jive.

2nd about how this “presentation” came about:

It is interesting that coinciently a CAIR pair was on hand, like am EMS unit, ready at a moments notice to deliver the presentation…. that is a presentation that is NOT BTW not approved by the TEA for use in the schools. CAIR has a long & well documented history of making up “hate-crimes” to get into schools or the news to push their agenda. Yet no one in charge bothered to simply google CAIR, and we are supposed to believe that our school administration is this incompetent?

The principal is incompetent because she didn’t do her homework on those she was bringing into the school, and she was doing this without regard to any policy, local, state or federal. Hey here’s an idea – how about picking up a phone & calling your boss or the FISD attorney to make sure such a potentially controversial subject is okay?

And the “out” from the School Superintendant is that she didn’t check her email so she didn’t know it was happening. Yeah, FISD is the state UIL academic champs over 10 years in a row – yet our central administration has no idea what is happening on it’s jr. high campus.

Maybe we are intolerant here – but our intolerance is incompetent public school administrators. How about all of them get fired? And while we are at it- let’s not move them into made up administration positions.

In regards to so-called seperation of church and state, here in a san diego a co-ed PUBLIC School w/my tax dollars, have allowed teen muslim women to be segregated from everyone else AND they also allow “outside” contracted persons in from 1pm to 2 pm..NOT ON RECESS) daily to pray. The person comes in, closes blinds and shuts door, students pull out prayer rugs etc. you get the picture and when a substitute teacher of that class watched this she went to the principal to ask about it and was told its an “arabic immersion” program. NO its not. They teach everything in english just not during prayer time) many other things were lied about so finally she went to the news, the board of ed and then to an attorney. Aclu said they’ll investigate it, but came back saying they don’t see any violation of “church and state”. I thought segregation was illegal also. They sit in the one class all day for all classes while no other classes do that. ITS A PUBLIC SCHOOL! Students have bibles tossed in the trash if they read them during recess in some states. WE NEED TO WAKE-UP! This is all documented and had been on all the local radio shows. LAST YR, mind you. One mainstream news had the courage to report it albeit a small report. The 1st radio show had the teacher on for an hour to explain it all. Plus the American Flag was rolled up and covered in thick dust so clear it’s never been unrolled-nor saluted. If one religion can pray than why can’t every other if they so choose? Either it is ALL illegal or none of it is. Not in america, not now anyway. sad state of affairs this nation is in.